Coming of Age Day

ご成人おめでとうございます！

Every January, teenagers who just turned or will turn 20 soon come together, dressed formally, to celebrate their coming of age.

It’s undoubtedly an important part of their life. Those boys and girls are now grown into adult men and women by the magic of a round number, and puberty. They can now enjoy the richer things of adulthood, including smoking, drinking, voting, and legal responsibility. Remember the day when you turned “legal?” There’s no fanfare like this in Canada, except maybe for high school graduation.

The Coming of Age Day is a national holiday in Japan celebrated in the morning of the second Monday of January, or observed during the preceding weekend in some areas. It is to publicly commemorate the young people’s 20^th anniversary. More precisely, it is intended for those who turned 20 during or after April last year and those who will turn 20 before or during March this year.

Many young lads and lasses will meet their peers at the elementary school where they began their childhood education. In Saitama, they all gathered in the Super Arena, near the Saitama Shintoshin station, where my girlfriend and I took a stroll to snap a few shots. Needless to say, it was a big crowd, and I wasn’t the only photographer.

Every girl wear a kimono with a fluffy white shawl and a floral ornament in their hair while every guy wear a suave business suit, ready for what’s next. Some of them tried to break the mold with their idea of a suitable uniform for the event with interesting kimono, unusual business suits, or simply colourful hair. You may believe only Japanese people attend the ceremony, but I did notice one young woman of foreign origin in the crowd.

The celebration was coming to an end when we noticed the Super Arena also houses the John Lennon Museum. The museum commemorating the life of the famous late Beatle approved by his widow Yoko Ono is sadly at the risk of closure. We paid a visit in the two-floor exhibition displaying all the moments of Lennon’s life, starting from his birth in Liverpool, England, to his sudden death in 1980. Surprisingly, the end of the path was the most poignant of the entire journey, in my opinion. If you’re a fan of John Lennon or the Beatles, you have to go see this museum before it closes. There’s also a nice lounge where visitors can listen to any album of the artist’s discography, read books about England, and even play a guitar of the same model John Lennon performed with. The only unfortunate thing about the museum is to be prohibited from taking pictures anywhere else other than the lobby.

After having an early dinner by eating delicious okonomiyaki in a building next to the arena, we went back home and ate a New Year Zenzai. It was a warm soup-like desert made from sweet red bean paste and our kagami mochi, the special “mirror” rice cake that was decorating our TV set since late last month. The food here at home is never wasted.

This was the first article of the year, so I hope 2010 has treated you well so far and that it will do the same for the rest of it.